


Avalanche

by HalQuin



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Introspection, M/M, Poetry, Prose Poem, gratuitous nature metaphors, sakusa pov mainly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27426940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalQuin/pseuds/HalQuin
Summary: Like an avalanche,Slowly, then all at once,This is how Sakusa Kiyoomi falls.--A collection of poems around Sakusa Kiyoomi and his relationship with Miya Atsumu.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Kudos: 10





	1. Here lies the immovable earth

**Author's Note:**

> No one asked for this but I wrote poetry. Could not stop thinking about these two.

**i.**

One two, one two,  
Shoes on linoleum floors,  
Small hands reaching forth.

_(One two, one two,_  
_Receive, block, spike)_

He doesn’t quite fall in love that day  
When he is first introduced to volleyball.

_(he follows after Komori’s cheerful smile_  
_“Come play with me.”)_

His love is molded carefully,  
By hours and hours of sweat and bruised arms,  
A hundred wins and a hundred loses,  
Until the moment at the apex of flight,  
He looks down at the court,   
Lights glaring, breaths buzzing –   
– and feels clarity.

_(he tucks that small satisfaction of each spike inside his chest,_  
_Folded up in paper cranes)_

Sakusa Kiyoomi does not know when he fell in love with volleyball.  
Like all things in his life,  
He woke up one day with volleyball etched in his chest,  
And carried on.

_(One two, one two,_  
_He sees things through.)_

**ii.**

It begins, like all things do,  
with volleyball.

He meets a boy,  
unremarkable at first  
and the splitting image of the other.

(“It’s a pretty good strategy,” Komori remarks,  
catching his gaze,  
“It’s hard to tell those two apart.”) 

One two three, one two three  
Serve, block, spike, receive –  
The ball transverses the net.

One two three, one two three  
A smirk, a dump, message received –  
He tries not to grit his teeth.

**iii.**

The boy does not leave.

Like a restless shadow,   
he skirts around in peripheral vision,  
always,  
that bright shock of yellow,  
always,  
that challenging stare. 

_(one two three, one two three,_  
_serve, block, spike, receive._  
_one two three, one two three,_  
_what do you see, when I catch you staring at me?)_

They meet again across the net  
and on the same side during training camp.  
That night before he sleeps,  
he holds his hands out before the light  
and wonders  
if he held them out long enough,  
would they wither and burn to pieces.

_(one two three, one two three,_  
_In his chest his heart beats.)_

**iv.**

He thinks about death sometimes,  
when his pet bird Torah died at the age of 8,   
when his grandmother was put into a casket at the age of 17.  
He thinks about what it would be like.  
Like sleeping? Like falling?  
Like running against the current?  
When you finally sink into the earth,  
first the hair, the skin,  
maggots in the eye sockets,  
and finally the bones  
disintegrating to dust.

_(ashes to ashes, dust to dust)_

He thinks about life too.  
He is forced to these days.  
There is a pile of brochures on his desk  
and offer letters in the mailbox.  
At dinner, his parents dance around the subject,  
asking if he’s seen the letter, implying he should make a choice.

Instead of these things,  
he thinks about volleyball,  
volleyball and Miya Atsumu  
who accepted an offer to join a division 2 vleague team  
(“Isn’t that risky, jumping directly into the league?”  
Miya’s eyes flash, a biting remark at his teeth.  
Then it recedes, forest fire to smothering embers,  
“Just watch me. I’ll be champions by the time ya graduate.”) 

One day, he will be nothing more than dust.  
Today, he lives and breaths and thinks.


	2. Attrition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this section style consistency goes out the window and the extended metaphors come whooshing in. Less prose poetry but still playing loose with structure.

**The boy in my dreams**

There is a boy in my dreams,  
that I always see,  
never a day past sixteen.

He has gold for hair,   
and opals for eyes,  
and smiles with a fox’s teeth.

Sometimes we play,  
Sometimes we fight,  
Never do we touch.

I wonder now,  
about this boy of my dreams,  
(this boy of my youth)  
and if he dreams about me.

**Remaniè**

There are many who catch his attention –   
Wakatoshi with his steady gaze,  
Iizuna with his head held high,   
– but only one who holds him captive.

Sakusa joins MSBY and Atsumu is there.

_“Omi-Omi!_ ” Miya calls,  
and he leaps.

Their eyes meet mid descent.

(Does he see?  
How he wears you down, like  
a torrential flood, the hot desert sun, glaciers  
a kilometer thick and stretching continents, scraping  
jagged rocks across the surface of earth, of crust, of skin,   
leaving invisible striations only  
ever in one direction.)

Kiyoomi exhales.  
The thundering applause of the crowd returns.  
The game goes on.

(Sakusa Kiyoomi is a man of consistency,  
No surprise his heart was too.)

**red on white on red**

_ To the one who holds my thoughts hostage: _  
I want to pick you a-  
part, painstakingly pluck  
your feathers, and read their secret inscriptions,  
the writing in the small beads of blood,  
flowing drop by  
drop, staining the white surface  
red.

**Hunger**

Wildfire,  
Blackhole,  
I see your endless hunger.

(Miya Atsumu is always reaching-  
One step, two step,  
Higher, faster,  
He welds monsters beneath his fingertips  
And feeds on their fallen corpses.)

Fenrir,  
Chain-breaker,  
Devourver of the sun.

(On the court Atsumu winks,  
And unleashes his hybrid serve.)

Jörmungandr,  
World-Eater,  
Consume until you're one.

(On the court Kiyoomi thinks,  
Come and swallow me whole.)

**stained glass**

...and no matter how hard you scrub,  
the bloodstains would not come off.  
The red travels up your arm and entangles to your chest.  
You scrub your hands until they are cracked and bleeding  
and you can no longer tell which blood is his and which yours.

They sing to you, that you are unclean,  
dirty, stained forever,  
_ cut it out _ the voices whisper  
louder and louder until their gnawing   
bangs against your skull.

Another voice, duller,  _ quieter _ , asks,  
how did his blood get on your hands,  
and where was the body now.


	3. The echo in the valley

**Avalanche**

Before the avalanche,  
the air shudders, trees hold their breath.  
(“I'm in love with you, Atsumu”)  
And then the ground  
gives way to gravity,  
the freefall and the flight.  
(“I’m in love with ya too, Kiyoomi”)  
The reverberations echo in the valley.

**There is nothing gentle about us, love**

There was nothing gentle about Sakusa Kiyoomi,  
not his sharp spikes, not his blunt words,  
not his edges like jagged puzzles,  
not his cold dispassionate gaze,  
that hid a fire underneath.

He would cut off the hand,  
to save the self.

(Après mois, le déluge)

There was nothing gentle about Miya Atsumu,  
not his serve, not his sets,  
not his laughter that cackled like wildfire,  
his teeth grazing over your ears,  
his nails drawing blood down your back.

He would walk through his own flame chasing the sun  
and urge it to burn higher.

(After me, comes the flood)

**v.**

It begins like this:  
two boys who play volleyball  
a game where you can only touch the ball once,  
reaching out and finding,  
that this one, they are allowed to touch,  
(this one, they are allowed to keep.)

One two, one two,  
Shoes on linoleum floors –  
Atsumu casts a grin across the gym,  
The ball soars in a perfect arc.

One two, one two –  
He spikes the ball down between the backline defenders,  
Who lunge forwards as the ball  
ricochets off to the bleachers.

“Nice kill Omi-Omi!”  
Atsumu grins,  
The earth crumbles, stars are made and unmade –  
– Kiyoomi smiles back.

_(One two, one two,_  
_He’ll see this through.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading my super indulgent poetry! Hopefully you enjoyed them. I post more poetry here sometimes: https://rosasantana.tumblr.com/ (does anyone still use this site??).


End file.
